Here, for September 9:
The slave of the slaves.” That’s how St. Peter Claver is remembered, the 17th-century Spanish Jesuit whose memorial is today. He spent most of his ministry in Cartagena, Colombia, the hub of the still-flourishing slave trade.
Peter and his associates would wait at the docks for the ships coming from Africa, and as the ships poured out the hundreds of suffering human beings, this Christian cohort would get to work, ministering to both body and soul.
We hear Jesus’ words in the Beatitudes as a promise about the future. They are certainly that, but perhaps they are a challenge for the present as well. It was a challenge taken up by St. Peter Claver and all the saints: to reveal the truth of Jesus’ promise to those suffering—to let the poor, hungry and imprisoned know that with Jesus near, they are, indeed, blessed.
